


Self-care issues

by Lerya



Series: Challenges (outside of discord) [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Portgas D Ace has issues, Portgas D Ace needs a hug, Protective Masked Deuce, Protective Whitebeard Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27213046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lerya/pseuds/Lerya
Summary: As he came back from a mission, Deuce noticed he didn't see Ace around, nor could anyone confirm the black-haired man went to the informary, if just to make sure everything was alright.Deuce, as the person on board the Moby Dick that knows just how strange Ace's coping mechanisms are, goes in search of his former captain, to make sure the man was indeed unharmed from his first mission as a Whitebeard Pirate.
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco & Portgas D. Ace, Masked Deuce & Portgas D. Ace, Portgas D. Ace & Whitebeard Pirates, Spade Pirates & Portgas D. Ace
Series: Challenges (outside of discord) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970032
Kudos: 84
Collections: One Piece Bingo 2020/2021





	Self-care issues

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the One Piece Bingo challenge on Tumblr.

Deuce knew he should have said something about this sooner, he knew this was something he should have shared with his new brothers and sisters of the Whitebeard Pirates, as soon as his idiot Captain agreed to join.

Shaking his head, he cast a glance to Saber, the other ex-Spade pirate having been on the same mission as Ace, one of their first as a matter of fact, since they joined the whitebeard pirates.

Clicking his tongue, Deuce went to search for Ace, doubting he would find the other man, but still trying. Within half an hour he knew that he wouldn’t find him, no matter he tried and hated the fact that Ace had these coping mechanisms.

With a frown on his face, he went and looked for the other members of the Spade Pirates, hoping at least one had seen their Captain.

None of them had, as he suspected and feared.

Knowing that he needed to find the black-haired man, he approached Thatch, the captain of the Forth division, the man had made it his personal mission to provide Ace with food through out the day. Even more so after finding out just how much he ate and how little he did eat in the three months that he tried to assassinate Oyaji.

Knocking on the door leading to the kitchens, Deuce entered and looked for the auburn haired chef. Finding him, as always so close to noon, at the stove overlooking his cooks from forth preparing lunch.

“Thatch-taicho?”

The man looked over from where he was looking at a stew being made.

“Ah, Deuce, Ace send you for a snack?”

Deuce grimaced, shaking his head, “I came to ask you if you had seen Ace these last few hours?”

Thatch shook his head, the look in his eyes betraying that he had picked up on Deuce being on edge.

“No, I have not. As a matter of fact, the only time I saw him was when they came back from their mission.”

Deuce ran a hand through his hair, “that’s what I am scared for. Marco-taicho and Jozu-taicho were the ones responsible for this mission, right?”

Giving a slow nod, Deuce nodded back.

“Thanks, I’ll go and ask them then.”

Thatch pursed his lips, probably worried now too.

“Let me know something, alright Deuce?”

Deuce waved a hand over his head, agreeing he’d let the chef know as soon as he did.

Making his way towards the commander quarters, he knocked on the door with a one on it, as a baritone voice told him to enter, he opened it, looking up as the first division commander looked up at him.

“Marco-taicho, I was wondering if you had seen Ace after the mission this morning.”

The blond frowned and shook his head.

“no-yoi.”

Deuce rubbed over his eyes, “then would you maybe know if he was injured?”

Marco frowned, “not that I noticed, yoi.”

Silence followed as the elder thought back about what happened this morning, “he might be, as I recall a marine shooting at him -yoi.

He did tell us that everything was fine, and he didn’t need to go to infirmary-yoi.”

Deuce cursed, taking Marco aback, seeing as Ace, and a few other of the Spades, were the ones with a foul mouth, the former first mate of the Spade Pirates almost never cursed.

A desperate look in his eyes, Deuce said; “we need to find Ace, he has the very, very stupid coping mechanism when he’s hurt. Namely find some solitude and hope everything turns out right, it might be something insignificant, but I do worry and wonder that he might be wounded more than we think.”

Marco pushed back his chair and nodded, “that is probably for the best- yoi.”

Deuce nodded, “I’ll go see if I can find him, again, even though I think he found a different place to hide than before.”

Marco frowned, “let me look then -yoi. You go and prepare the infirmary, just in case -yoi.”

Deuce smiled, happy for once, to not be the only doctor on this ship, and more to have someone already close to 30 years at sea and a doctor.

“Thanks, Marco-taicho, I’ll go do that.”

Nodding to the blue-haired man, Marco left his room, in search of their wayward brother.

Looking around, starting with looking into each and every room Ace had used before to hide into when he tried to assassinate Oyaji. Not having any luck with that, he used his observation haki, homing in on the wark feeling Ace had, being a flame-flame man.

As he found the right feeling to look for, he frowned, feeling the normally vibrant flame warm aura to be toned down and less vibrant than he was used too.

Hurrying to the spot he feels it, he opens a door to an empty storage room, where on the floor their wayward brother was laying, a layer of sweat on his face – making the doctor in him worry all that more, especially with what Deuce had said right before.

Approaching the laying figure, he shook the black-haired man’s shoulder, not getting a reaction, he started calling the other’s name, when this also didn’t give a reaction, Marco rolled him over as he was laying on his front.

Only to wince, on Ace abdomen, a very angry bruise had formed, the purple-blue colour betraying the severity of it and possibly an internal injury. Seeing as Ace was a Devil Fruit user, this meant seastone somewhere on his body was preventing him from healing this on his own.

Cursing, he scooped up the younger man and ran for the infirmary, where once he put the man on a free bed, Deuce approached and cursed, taking out a flashlight to look for the glistening of a fragment of seastone.

Marco in the meantime, began prodding and looking at the bruise on Ace’s abdomen, not feeling all that happy with the way he felt that this was most likely an internal injury.

Telling this to Deuce, the man cursed once more, before starting to look for the fragment of seastone.

A quiet ‘aha’ had Marco looking up to see Deuce using tweezers to pull a fragment from Ace’s arm, it was probably a bullet that had been guarded against by someone else, only for a splinter to still make it to Ace and burry itself in his arm.

As soon as the fragment was out of his system, Marco noticed a significant change in the bruise on the other man’s abdomen, the warm feeling under his hand betraying his devil fruit was healing the damage.

Sighing once, before looking at Deuce and seeing the man just as relieved that everything was fine with his former captain, he smiled, “crisis averted -yoi.”

Deuce nodded, “thank the sea, would you mind staying here until he wakes up? I promised Thatch-taicho I’d keep him posted on this.”

Marco nodded, waving his hand to let Deuce know he could go and inform the chef of what had happened.

As Ace woke up, he was glad the heavy feeling and the nausea from before was gone. He felt so much better already, making him smile – he knew he just needed a nap, not a narcoleptic nap at that, and everything would be better.

Opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was Deuce sitting next to his bed, taking to Marco.

As he made a sound, in trying to say something, both doctors looked at him with a glare in their eyes.

“I didn’t do it!”

Deuce sighed, “we know, it isn’t what you did do, it’s what you didn’t do, you idiot!”

Looking confused, Ace looked between Deuce and Marco, not getting what they were getting at.

Marco frowned, “Ace -yoi, I found you in an unused storage room, sweating like you were coming down with something, with a giant bruise on your abdomen. Which, later, turned out to be internal bleeding -yoi!”

Ace frowned, “but I am a logia…”

Deuce nodded, before giving him a medical tray, “but being a logia doesn’t help when you have a fragment of seastone lodged into your arm.”

Ace gaped, looking sheepish, “so that’s why I was feeling so mad.”

Deuce and Marco shook their head, “yeah, but Ace, this could have been solved so much quicker, if you just went to the infirmary after a mission to get checked out, just in case. You never know if something is wrong, and we are still at sea, so many things could happen especially with you being a devil fruit user.”

Ace waved it away, “I turned out fine now too! So, no worries.”

Looking at Marco, Deuce sighed, letting the older man know this was something that had been spoken about before, on the Piece of Spadille.

Marco looked at the black-haired man, “Ace -yoi, there is no reason not to go to the infirmary after a mission -yoi. Especially if we can prevent something like this from happening -yoi.”

Ace shrugged, “don’t see a reason too, it turned out fine now too!”

Deuce glared at his former captain, “because I suspected something was wrong and started looking, you idiot! If I hadn’t, if I assumed everything was fine and just did my normal chores, it might have lasted until the end of the day before anyone thought to go looking for you and found you, in the worst case scenario – dead.

Get it through your thick skull that it’s stupid to hide when you’re injured, Ace, as with this case you had a severe case of internal bleeding, if Marco-taicho hadn’t found you, there is a realistic chance you would have bled out before anyone could find you! Then what!”

In a softer voice, he added; “think about what we would have to tell your little brother if that were to happen.”

Ace paled and looked down at that, hid face betraying the tumult in his head.

Marco added softly, “is he the reason you don’t think about yourself in cases like this.”

Ace hesitated, before he opened his mouth, “I… There were Three of us, but Sabo, the middle brother, he died when we were young. I foolishly promised my little brother, Luffy, that I’d never die. So, every time I got hurt after… after we lost Sabo, I pretended that nothing had happened, and the pain went away soon enough anyway. We didn’t really have a doctor on hand, so a lot of injuries were treated with first aid we learned while doing.

I… I just assumed I could keep doing that, everything stops hurting after some time anyway, so going to a doctor never comes up in me.”

Marco frowned, “Ace, you’re in the New World now, a lot can happen here, and even devil fruit users can get hurt enough that their lives might be in danger -yoi. You can’t keep this coping mechanism, that’s dangerous -yoi.”

Ace pursed his lips, which they could understand somewhere, it wasn’t easy to break habits, especially habits you’ve had since you were a child.

Deuce looked at Ace pleadingly, “come and find me after a mission or a fight on the ship and I’ll take a look alright? So, you won’t have to go to the infirmary right away, but you do need to see someone who can look for injuries or shards of seastone, just in case!”

Ace sighed, but nodded, “I’ll try to.”

Deuce and Marco nodded, “that’s all we ask. Now, come on, lunch should be served soon, and we know for a fact Thatch made more to drown his worries for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to add me on discord Lerya#6444.  
> Or send me an e-mail: lerya.fanfic@gmail.com  
> Or follow me on tumblr: lerya-fanfic.tumblr.com


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